Day: June 2, 2019

Reading

I’m setting those library books up and knocking them down! (Okay, not really…) Finished Poe: A Life Cut Short and Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters last week. I’ve already reviewed the first and I have the second queued up for later in the coming week.

Deal Me In: This week I pulled 2♦, the first wild card of the year! Yesterday, I got off on a tangent and ended up reading about one of favorite subjects: historical automata! I read “The Android Clarinetist by Cornelis Jacobus Van Oeckelen (1838)” by Albert Rice from the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society (no. 40 (2014), pg 163-189). It was a summary of Van Oeckelen’s life as an inventor as well as a technical run-down of the automaton, which is currently owned by John Gaughan. Just a neat little slice of history.

In the coming week, I will be reading The History of Soul 2065 by Barbara Krasnoff, one of the few ARCs I’m reviewing this year. I’m also going to try to get to The Spectacle of Illusion.

Watching

My movie pick of the week? Ocean’s 8 (2018). It’s not quite as sharp as Ocean’s 11, but it’s still a fun heist movie with a really great cast.

Doing

Watercolor Class:

The first “assignment” was to do an abstract using different techniques (wet on dry, wet on wet, etc.). I ended up doing it twice. There are things I like about both, but I’m pretty pleased with how the second one came out. I’m still struggling with the inexactness of watercolors. It’s a learning process in more ways than one.

What I’m Not Doing: Jury duty! I got a federal summons at the beginning of May, but luckily (for me) they don’t need a jury in the coming week. I’ve never done jury duty before. I was half looking forward to it for the experience, but going downtown and actually having to do it was another matter.